Imagine This: Collection of Tumblr Drabbles
by EmilyFuckingFitch
Summary: If this is how her story ends, if this is how she dies, it's better than anything Root could've hoped for. Takes place after 4x18.
1. Chapter 1

"Do we have a deal?"

The boy narrows his eyes at her, gauging whether or not her offer is real, or fool's gold. If her heart wasn't beating so wildly in her chest, if her throat wasn't so hard to swallow, she would smirk at how distrusting Samaritan is with her, how _threatened _he is of her—even if he tries not to show it.

But, he shouldn't doubt her words—at least, not now, not about this. She came here out of her own free will. The Machine has been pleading in her ear the entire way here not to do this, begging her to reassess her decisions. Because She has a _plan, _one that involves rescuing Shaw, one that gives them a fighting chance at defeating Samaritan. If she surrenders herself right now to Samaritan, The Machine is certain that they will lose this war. Harold, Feese, Fusco—they will all be under the reign of Samaritan, and The Machine will be powerless to stop Him.

But Root doesn't care. Her plan will take months, even _years _to reach fruition, and Shaw will still be in Samaritan's tight grasp, chained and tortured and—

Root feels bile rise in her throat. She tries to swallow it down. She'd caused all of this. _She _was the one who'd asked Shaw for help that day, _she _was the own who'd let Shaw sacrifice herself instead of stopping her, _she _was the one who'd let Samaritan capture her.

She was the one who failed Shaw. Not Harold. That is a burden that she has to bear, a burden that she will have to repay.

And this is how she's going to repay it.

Root tries to drown out Her final words to her, her desperate pleas in convincing her that it's not too late to turn back, to escape before Samaritan's agents can capture her. Instead, she tries to focus on the wave of relief that will engulf her when Samaritan accepts her deal, focuses on the weightlessness she'll feel when the guilt that's weighed so heavy on her chest will be lifted.

There are fates worse than death, but none of them are worse than this. To live in a world in which she walks the Earth unharmed while Shaw's caged and experimented on.

This is a fate that she simply can't bear anymore.

It's time for the harbinger of death to collect, and it will be merciful end, to give her life away in exchange for Shaw's.

Root takes a deep breath, and looks at the boy dead in the eye, steady and unwavering. He must see something shift in her eyes, a truth that was hazy with indecision before, because after a moment, he smirks at her as though he's won and says:

"Yes."

* * *

It's funny, Root thinks. She's thought about how she was going to die many times before, has come to terms with the idea of it long ago—who doesn't in her line of work? She looks at Hades right in the eye on a daily basis, has thought up of the top 5 ways of how she was going to die.

How she's _currently _dying however, was not one of the five.

"Hey," Root hears, at least, she thinks. Her vision is becoming blurry, and it doesn't help that she has this sudden urge to close her eyes. She feels a hand cradle her head gently, and another trying to put pressure on the wound. She wants to tell them not to bother. The Machine has told her that it hit a main artery. She'll be lucky if she'll survive longer than 10 minutes.

"_Root," _she hears again, and this time she recognizes it. She opens her eyes.

It's Shaw.

"Root," Shaw says more forcefully. "Don't you dare die on me."

Root smiles weakly. "I _knew _it. I_ knew _you were alive."

Shaw moves her body closer to Root, takes off her jacket. "Now's not the time to talk about this, Root." She rips one of its sleeves and starts wrapping it around Root's abdomen. "We need to dress this wound."

Root ignores her. "Harold thought you were dead but I—" Root laughs, shaking her head. "I didn't believe it. I _knew _you were too stubborn to die."

"_Root," _Shaw commands, her voice laced with panic. "Stop moving, you're losing a lot of blood." Shaw looks down at her, sees her face become paler, her eyes blinking more lazily. "Root, don't you fucking die on me. Don't you _dare." _

Root struggles to smile at her—it comes off as a grimace. "I'm glad I finally found you," Root breathes, as the heaviness of her eyelids becomes too much.

"Root!" She hears—she thinks Shaw's voice is wavering, but she can't know for sure. "Please."

* * *

"We need to move now, Root," Shaw breathes heavily. "_Now_."

Root feels Shaw pulling on her arm, trying to get her to stand up. She wants to tell Shaw to stop it—she feels nauseous and tired, from the amount of blood she's lost, Root thinks. She looks up to find Shaw's forehead covered in sweat, her tank top stained with dried blood. She'd made a tourniquet around her own arm when Root wasn't paying attention—though it's slowed the bleeding, she sees streaks of red spilling through it anyway.

"_Now_, Root," Shaw says again, her voice low and haggard. Root looks down at herself to find that her own hands are soaked in red. She was putting pressure on the wound on her abdomen as Shaw tried to buy them time to escape from the Decima Agents. She's lost two liters of blood. Blood all over her hands, all over her shirt, the floor—

Shaw tugs at her again, gives her a defiant look.

_We will not die. Not here._

Root wants to laugh, because they both know how much blood she's lost. They both know that if Root doesn't get this wound patched in five minutes, she'll start to lose consciousness, in seven, she'll pass out—

in ten, she'll die.

(It takes eleven minutes to exit the building, The Machine whispers in her ear, but Root doesn't tell Shaw this.

Shaw doesn't need to know.)

Instead, Root nods obediently and wraps an arm around Shaw's neck. With some effort from both of them, Shaw's able to pull her up with a pained grunt.

"This way," Shaw breathes out more than says. Root leans heavily on Shaw as they make their way through the corridor.

"I hear them!" A man's voice echoes from behind them.

"Shit," Shaw mutters, tries to pull out her gun with her good arm. She's finding it more difficult—much to her chagrin, Root's body is blocking her holster.

"Root, you need to—"

"Go, Shaw."

Shaw gives her confused look. "What?"

"You can still get out," Root breathes, removing her arm from around Shaw's neck, but Shaw tugs it back, keeping it there.

"_Go_," Root commands, tired."The Machine told me that Finch and Reese are outside the building waiting."

(The Machine didn't. It was the only way Root could think of to get Shaw to leave.)

To her annoyance, Shaw doesn't listen to her. Instead, Shaw scoffs at her and says, "If you think I'm just going to leave you—"

"If you don't," Root cuts her off. "We both die."

Shaw looks at her in the eyes, her eyes daring Root to try and convince her otherwise. "I'm not leaving you," Shaw says, just as she pushes Root far enough away to grab a hold of her gun.

"Over here!" A man yells just as he comes into view. Shaw shoots center mass, and he goes down in a thud.

"We need backup!" Another voice says. They hear footsteps approaching them, closer and closer. The nearest elevator is thirty seconds from here. The Decima Agents are coming in five.

They won't make it in time, Root thinks.

She looks up at Shaw.

From the smug look on her face, Shaw must know it too.

"Must be the end of the world," Root remarks, tries to muster up a smile.

Shaw lets out a small chuckle.

"Root," Shaw says in a soft tone, reloading her gun. "It's someday." Shaw looks up at her. "This still good enough for you?"

At that, a genuine smile blooms on Root's face. "Yeah, Sameen." Root breathes in, and closes her eyes. "This is good enough for me."

If this is how her story ends, if this is how she dies, it's better than anything Root could've hoped for.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, Shaw," Root calls as she opens the door to Shaw's apartment, pulling her keys out from the door handle. She expects to hear footsteps padding towards her or a grunt of acknowledgement, but instead, she's greeted with silence and a dark apartment, save for the streetlights coming from the window. She lets herself inside, closing the door behind her. She briefly wonders if she got back to her apartment before Shaw did, when she hears the voices of two men and a woman panting. Frowning, Root takes out her taser from her coat pocket and, as quietly as she can, tiptoes towards the source of the noise.

_"What you made me do. You were my friend and you betrayed me!"_

_"No. I was trying to protect you."_

Her frown deepens. This sounds…oddly familiar, Root thinks, as she approaches closer and closer, evening her breathing as much as she can, readying her hand to press the button on her taser when she hears—

loud munching?

"Shaw," Root scolds, putting her taser back into her coat pocket. "You didn't answer the door because you were watching the _Amazing Spiderman_?"

"Shh," Shaw hushes, her mouth full of popcorn. "It's getting to the good part."

Root doesn't relent. "What if I was a hitman? Or a killer?" She crosses her arms, unamused by Shaw's lack of concern. "You just sat there and let me walk into your home."

Shaw scoffs halfheartedly, her focus still on the television screen. "You _are_ a hitman, Root. _And_ a killer," Shaw says distractedly, popping another handful of popcorn into her mouth.

"Reformed," Root corrects, before waving her hand away at that. "But not the point. You could've—"

Shaw groans, irritated. "Root, shut up and let me watch this movie in peace or I'll make you shut up," Shaw warns.

Root quirks her eyebrow. "Really?"

"_Yes," _Shaw bites. "Now shut up and let me watch."

Root smirks. "Alright, Shaw," she singsongs as she walks over to Shaw, plopping herself down on the couch next to her. She grabs a couple of popcorn kernels from the bowl on Shaw's lap, and pops them into her mouth. For the next five minutes, the only noises in the room are their munches and Green Goblin and Spiderman talking, and Shaw starts believing that Root might actually stay quiet this time. She starts relaxing her body, getting engrossed into the movie again–

That is, until Root hums as though she knows something Shaw doesn't, and doesn't _stop. _Shaw tries to ignore it, tries to focus on Green Goblin's words and Spiderman's apologies, but her humming gets louder and louder and–

"What?" Shaw finally asks, annoyed.

Root lets out a small laugh and shakes her head. "Oh, it's nothing," she says through a smile, and nods towards the television screen. "It's just that Gwen dies at the end, so all of this pleading is just—"

"God dammit, Root," Shaw huffs. She slams the popcorn bowl down on the coffee table and stands up. "This is the third movie you've ruined for me."

Root shrugs sheepishly, pops the rest of the popcorn kernels into her mouth before standing up too. "Sorry," Root pouts, though her voice implies differently. "How about I make it up to you?" she asks suggestively.

Shaw narrows her eyes at her, annoyance still evident on her face. But after a moment, she shakes her head and sighs, grabs the remote and turns off the television screen.

Shaw walks up to Root, her eyes dark and full of mischief, and leans in her ear.

"You better," Shaw says lowly, before pulling Root's wrist roughly towards the bedroom.


	3. Chapter 3

"We are _not_ dumping her in a tub, Root," Shaw scolded.

Root pouts, looks down at the bathtub in disappointment. "Why not?"

"_Because_," Shaw says, irritated. "If we drop her in there with that hot iron like you wanted, it'll kill her."

Root rolls her eyes, leans down and wades her hand through the water. "No it won't. It'd probably just give her a heart attack, at most."

"Heart attacks kill people, Root," Shaw deadpans.

Root shrugs half-heartedly, before standing up straight, flicking the water off her hand. "So what if she dies?"

Shaw sighs, impatient. "We can't extract any information from her if she's dead."

Martine groans to herself, annoyed. She twiddles her thumbs as she sits in the chair, her wrists and legs bounded. They've been at this conversation for _hours_ since Martine woke up. Root wants to choose a method that'd cause her the most pain and inevitably kill her, Shaw wants to choose a practical means to extort information from her, and at this point, Martine just wants them to choose something that'd kill her the quickest. All of this was slightly amusing at first—to witness firsthand how Root got under the skin of a sociopath, but after fifteen minutes of all their bickering, she regretfully wishes that maybe some things were better left to her imagination.

"I don't see how her death is much of a loss seeing as she tortured _you_ and—"

"Root," Shaw commands. "The mission."

Root looks at Shaw, her eyes glistening, full of something that Martine couldn't quite put a name to.

"I lost you for eight months, Shaw," Root tries to say steadily, though Martine can hear the shakiness in her voice.

Shaw sighs, and walks over to Root. She stands in front of her for a few seconds, looking unsure of what to do next, and then, after a moment, awkwardly places a hand on Root's shoulder—trying to comfort Root, Martine assumes. "I'm here now."

"Oh for god's sake," Martine bellows, unable to take any of more this. "Just get on with it."

To her chagrin, they ignore her presence. Though, they must've heard her words because Root turns around, and looks down at the supplies they have on the table. "What about…" Root draws, before picking up a pair of pliers. "Fingernail torture?"

Shaw shakes her head. "Too messy for the amount of information it'd give." She skims across the table for something more suitable, but looks dissatisfied with all of them.

Shaw purses her lips. "What about your taser, Root?"

Root scoffs. "I'm not using it on _her_."

"Look," Martine interrupts, and they turn to look at her. Martine sighs. She can't believe what she's about to say next, but at this point, she's at her wits end with their lack of efficiency.

"Just do waterboarding on me. It's the most effective means of torture, and with enough luck, the water will get into my lungs and hopefully, I'll suffocate."

_And then I won't have to deal with you two anymore _is left unsaid.

Shaw and Root look back at each other, trying to gauge the other's approval. Shaw narrows her eyes at Root, and Root does the same.

Martine wants to smack her head against the wall. Hopefully give herself a concussion. Perhaps a coma. Whichever will be the quickest in getting these two out of her life.

After a moment, Shaw nods at Root, and Root offers a small smile, before nodding back.

They turn back to Martine.

Martine cocks an eyebrow at them. "Happy?"

Shaw and Root smirk at her, before walking towards her predatorily.

"Very," they say together.


End file.
